Bacteria-grabbing Smart Capsule for Targeted GI Tract Sampling

Your gut bacteria could say a lot about you, such as why you’re diabetic or how you respond to certain drugs.

But scientists can see only so much of the gastrointestinal tract to study the role of gut bacteria in your health. What comes out of you is just a small sample of these bacteria, without indicating where they came from in the digestive system.

Purdue University engineers built a way to swallow a tool that acts like a colonoscopy, except that instead of looking at the colon with a camera, the technology takes samples of bacteria.

The technology could also move throughout the whole GI tract, not just the colon. This tract, in addition to the colon, includes the mouth, esophagus, stomach, pancreas, liver, gallbladder, small intestine and rectum.

Full Story: https://bit.ly/smart-capsule

Featured Purdue University Engineer:

Rahim Rahim - Assistant Professor, Materials Engineering

An initial demonstration of the smart capsule prototype was published in RSC Advances, a journal by the Royal Society of Chemistry. https://doi.org/10.1039/C9RA10986B


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Known as the “Cradle of Astronauts,” Purdue University's College of Engineering’s long list of pioneers includes Neil Armstrong and Amelia Earhart. Purdue Engineering is among the largest in the United States and includes 13 academic programs and ranked Top 10 nationwide by U.S. News and World Report.

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